Trip To Keuka Lake 2015

I went to Keuka Lake with Kim again this year.  This year, we actually did a few fun things in addition to planting Aunt Jean’s flowers.

We went to Garrett Memorial Chapel, which is at the CROTCH of the Y-shaped lake.   We didn’t have great weather, but it was still very striking.  The rhododendron were at their peak:

We missed the window (ha) when we could actually go in the church, but here’s an artsy photo of the chapel through a broken glass pane in the door:

The slate roof was really cool looking:

We also went to Watkins Glen State Park, which connects to the southern end of Seneca Lake. It was bonkers beautiful.

We walked from the lower end to the higher end of the gorge trail.  At the top end, there was another visitor center, so we used the restroom and turned around to go back down, and actually there was a more direct path that we could take down.  We saw these Amish dudes a few times on our way up, and then when we got to the top, they were dangerously sitting on this train bridge.  They saw me taking a picture of their RUMSPRINGA devil-may-care antics and waved (they clearly did not think my camera was stealing their souls…actually I just looked up “Amish Photo Beliefs” and it said that since they can’t stop long distance photography, the moral burden is on me).

After we were done with our walk, we went into the town of Watkins Glen, where we did a little shopping and had some Ben & Jerry’s.

This was part of a mural inside Ben & Jerry’s.  Cows are cute:

I think we went to Bully Hill two times – mostly centered around buying some sort of wine bottle-related yard ornament for Kim, Aunt Jean stealing that one, and having to buy Kim another one.  Beautiful view as always:

We got Aunt Jean’s plants in order quickly; we’re pretty good at it after doing it together for a few years now:

We added some new plants in that mulched area against the house.  It’s a much bigger area than it seems like, so it’s going to take us a while to get it filled in the way Aunt Jean envisions:

I’m always fascinated with the German people’s cottage/house.  They’re never there yet when I go, but they come and stay for 6 weeks every year.  It’s such a cute cottage and the people who take care of it the rest of the year do such a good job.   It makes me wonder about the financials of the whole arrangement…how do they get 6 weeks off every year, how do they afford cross-Atlantic flights every year, how do they afford NY state property taxes, how do they afford the care of this house, etc., etc.

Here was a really pretty twilight:

Kim was excited to show me about Chinese lanterns (I’ve never lit/used one):